The Sunday Slide: April 21, 2024

April 21, 2024

Kenny DeJohn

Ryan Manley / Vermont Athletics

This spring has been all about the underdog. The unexpected. The undeniable unpredictability of sports. (Anymore “un-“ words I can use?)

We as fans (and media) will remember the big ones. Like how Penn State beat Northwestern. Like how Penn beat Maryland. And so on and so forth.

But how about what we as outsiders might consider the “little” upsets? They sure won’t seem little to the players at VCU and Vermont. Things we glance over because they don’t impact the bigger picture can mean the world to those directly affected.

VCU earned its first-ever win over Richmond in its nine-year history, downing the Spiders 9-7. The Rams held Richmond scoreless for the final 20:53 and scored the game’s final three goals.

Rutgers might be having an inconsistent season, but Vermont will certainly celebrate a win over a Big Ten program that’s recently seen success. Clare Adelhelm assisted Kendall Traveis’ winner with 1:24 left after Cassidy Spilis scored three straight to tie it for the Scarlet Knights. Ava Vasile scored four goals for the Catamounts.

So, while those wins won’t alter the national landscape and probably won’t mean much to the broader lacrosse audience, they were big ones for VCU and Vermont. Shoutout to them.

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS

After reading more about Paul Gait’s jersey retirement, seeing the fanfare at the JMA Wireless Dome and catching Syracuse’s unreal win on Saturday, I was reminded that Katie Rowan remains the lone women’s lacrosse player to be recognized in a similar fashion by the Orange. When is Kayla Treanor getting her due?

Conference tournament season is semi-upon us, with the ACC tournament playing its opening-round games on Sunday. Does it feel like the postseason yet for you? Either way, we have our first two postseason winners of 2024:

(9) Louisville 13, (8) Virginia Tech 11: Louisville earned its first-ever ACC tournament win led by four goals and three caused turnovers by Nicole Perroni.

(7) Clemson 18, (10) Pitt 15: Mere days after Clemson eeked out a one-goal win over Pitt, the Tigers won by a more comfortable margin on Sunday — though that is not to say this one was every truly a guarantee. Regan Byrne led the Tigers with five goals, three of which came in the second half to help keep her side ahead.

Two CAA seasons, two CAA regular-season championships for Stony Brook. Another perfect conference slate was wrapped up by the Seawolves on Sunday against Hofstra, with the duo of Alex Finn and Ellie Masera each contributing seven points in an 18-5 win. Stony Brook concludes its regular season on Thursday afternoon with a visit from Stanford.

It’s been a down year for Army but a great one for two of its best individual stars — Allison Reilly and Brigid Duffy. Both eclipsed Duffy’s 82 points from 2023, which stood as Army’s single-season record. Reilly has 88 and Duffy has 85 in 2024, and with those two in the fold for two more years, Army doesn’t need to do much to get back to last year’s level of success.

What’s been amazing to me about Northwestern since the beginning of last year is that it’s not the Izzy Scane Show. Because it very well could be. To wrap up a regular-season Big Ten title, it could have been. But instead, Madison Taylor and Erin Coykendall led the team with five points apiece in a 13-12 win over Michigan. Scane had three goals and one assist.

Another Apuzzo? Alyssa Apuzzo — Sam Apuzzo’s cousin — had three goals and one assist in American’s 12-11 win over Boston U.

Haven Dora paced Princeton’s 17-11 win over Dartmouth with two goals and six assists. She also paced the field quite often as a cross country runner in high school. Dora holds two cross country records at Trinity Hall in Tinton, N.J.

Here’s a sentence you might not have believed on March 2, when Penn State fell to 2-4: The Nittany Lions are the No. 2 seed in the Big Ten tournament. They’re 7-2 since with wins over Northwestern and Maryland. There isn’t a single team that wants to play Penn State in the postseason.

FUN WITH NUMBERS

8 • Assists by Erika Chung in a 19-13 win over Brown, a single-game Quakers record.

11 • Points (five goals, six assists) by Mia Mascone in that 19-13 loss at Penn. Mascone, a Brown captain, has 88 points this season — the most in a single season in program history.

170 • Saves made by Paige Borkwoski this season, a single-season Youngstown State record. With one game remaining, she’ll separate further from Savannah Clarke’s previous program mark of 167 saves set in 2022.

309 • Career goals for Maryville’s Sydney Tiemann, one away from the Division II women’s lacrosse career record set by Mercy’s Hunter Isnardi (2016-19). Tiemann had 15 goals across two wins for Maryville this week.

Written By

Kenny DeJohn

Kenny DeJohn has been the Digital Content Editor at USA Lacrosse since 2019. First introduced to lacrosse in 2016 as a Newsday Sports reporter on Long Island (yes, ON Long Island), DeJohn specializes in women's game coverage. His search for New York quality pizza in Baltimore is ongoing.

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The Sunday Slide: April 21, 2024

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS

FUN WITH NUMBERS

Kenny DeJohn

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